catdynamics | November 13, 2006Science and Reason has a good summary on the ongoing Beyond Einstein review at NASA
The NRC committee held its First Meeting (Agenda PDF) last week.
Would some of those who were there like to comment on how it went?
How were the preparations? Everyone have their ducks lined up or did some people drop the ball?
Here again is the committee membership - final version, I presume
My continued impression is that it is light on high energy astrophysics types and very top heavy on cosmologists, which is a bit worrying. I would have liked to have seen 1-2 more people who knew something about gravity…
catdynamics | November 13, 2006Philosophia Naturalis #3 went up at Geek Counterpoint last week.
Good stuff.
catdynamics | November 10, 2006Things you learn at 37,000 feet.
Muse has a song titled "Supermassive Black Hole".
Hm from the best selling Black Holes and Revelations
Who knew?
Supermassive Black Hole
(You set my soul alight)
Glaciers melting in the dead of night
And the superstars sucked into the supermassive
(You set my soul alight)
Glaciers melting in the dead of night
And the superstars sucked into the 'supermassive'
Supermassive black hole
Supermassive black hole
Supermassive black hole
You just gotta admire any band that will deal with Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals and tidal disruption.
Hey, I wonder if they worked…
catdynamics | November 10, 2006Oh boy, a jet lagged friday. So we ask the migthy one an easy one.
Wazzup? Tell us, oh Great iPod - whence now, scientifically and generally?
Whoosh goes the randomizer. Whoosh.
The Covering: Another Man's Done Gone - Billy Bragg
The Crossing: Avalon - Roxy Music
The Crown: Old Brass Wagon - Twin Sisters
The Root: Foli Foli Fólipri - Svanhildur
The Past: Andante - Julian Bream
The Future: Too Experienced - The Bodysnatchers
The Questioner: Young Lust - Pink Floyd
The House: Decomposing Composers
The Inside: The Space Between - Roxy Music
The Outcome: America is Not the World - Morrissey…
catdynamics | November 7, 2006So, today is election day, in the USA. In case you hadn't noticed.
Unusually enough, polls predict some actual incumbents may be voted out, which I must say is rather unusual, if not outright undemocratic.
Question is: if this comes true, what should The Nation do with such Talent?
For example: Mr Blackwell, Secretary of State in Ohio may be unemployed.
One might think such an experienced administrator would be best placed on the Federal Election Commission, but there is also a vacancy for an ambassador to Iraq...
Maybe Ms Harris of Florida would be available for the FEC?
You might argue that…
catdynamics | November 6, 2006Study says seat belts would make buses safer
Well, no shit!
Whenever this issue is raised locally (in the US), we are patiently told that it is just not possible.
So, here I am in Scandinavia, and every bus in the last three countries had lap seat belts on every seat.
I guess I'm just imagining things, since that is clearly not possible.
catdynamics | November 6, 2006There was a flap last week when some LANL USB sticks were found in the possession of a petty criminal.
An actual security breach, as opposed to a hypothetical one.
Now Prof Foland at Nuclear Mangos notes a claim in the media that the sticks contained PAL codes!
That would be not good. If true. The media is not exactly 100% reliable on these matters.
PAL codes are the arming codes for warheads in the US nuclear inventory.
Modern nuclear weapons, in the US, are "locked" - there is an electronic or electro-mechanical physical block to detonating the device. Without the code to unlock it, you…
catdynamics | November 6, 2006So there was a somewhat subdued response to the "what science fields are most underfunded", but it got me thinking about a slightly different question, namely:
which science fields could rapidly produce more science results if given a sudden increase in funding?
This is a somewhat non-trivial question, since generating expertise takes time, so does building equipment and collecting data.
There are important fields, which would really have diminshing returns in response to sudden increases in funding - they are already manpower limited, and there is no fungible manpower where people with the…
catdynamics | November 6, 2006The National Science Foundation Senior Review of Astronomy is out, now
Read 'em and weep.
Executive summary (it is almost 100 pages, will take time to digest):
PI grants are going to be squeezed, badly. Can you do anything about that?
Solar physics loses almost all its toys in exchange for the one big new toy.
"Orderly withdrawal" - rather catchy that, maybe we can use it for some other things also...
No more instruments for NOAO or Gemini. GMT or LSST contingent on new MRF funding.
Close Arecibo and VLBI, unless someone else antes up.
Cut back on GBT and start buying into SKA.
Get us more…
catdynamics | November 5, 2006the 5th of November
The Gunpowder, Treason and Plot
Guy Fawkes day is not my favourite holiday, even if I do like bonfires and fireworks.
Many years ago I went to bonfire night in Lewes, Sussex, where some of the protestant martyrs were burned. They seem to still take it personally after all these years. And that is in a quiet peaceful country.
One of the very few times I have been scared of a mob, and none of it was directed at me.
catdynamics | November 5, 2006Ok, seriously, what are the most underfunded fields in science?
I have to agree with some of the other responses: the single most underfunded field across the board, where significant extra funding could leverage major long term results - is systematics - good old fashioned field biology, doing collection, classification, taxonomy, storing samples and preserving.
I'm hard pressed to think of fields in chemistry and physics where I can unambiguously say there is serious underfunding - not that there aren't a lof of fields which could use more funding, but most would be best served by steady…
catdynamics | November 5, 2006Andy Kessler is a techie.
Engineer, financial analyst and fund manager.
He is rich, successful and semi-retired, by the looks of it.
He also ran into the US health care system, a fairly gentle bump I must say, and now he wants to see the current system ended, while preferably making another billion in the process.
The End of Medicine, is an easy read, anecdotal, bit choppy, reading almost like a printout of a blog.
Names are dropped, jargon flung (and to be fair, explained), and pharmaceutical companies and medical doctors are savaged.
It is in some ways a satisfying read, Kessler identifies…
catdynamics | November 4, 2006On tuesday Hvalur HF announced that the whaling ship Hvalur 9 was back in harbour and that the fin whaling season is over for the year.
Seven fin whales were struck and landed, out of a quota of nine total.
I want to provide my perspective on the whaling issue in Iceland and a possible political resolution:
to cut a long story short, the whaling quota should be open for bids, and the whale watching companies should buy it and not use it.
Whaling in Iceland has an extensive history. In Konungsskuggsjá (Speculum Regale), a 13th century "advice to kings", the expected yield of whale…
catdynamics | November 4, 2006SciBling Chris Mooney has written an interesting book: The Republican War on Science.
I finally got around to reading it, just in time, as it were.
Seems a bit late, but I see Chris is still on book tour, and it is very current as a topic, plus it is now out in paperback.
War on Science is a book most scientists should read.
It was a hard book to read, mostly because the topic is somewhat depressing, but also to be fair (since this is a "review") because if could have used some editing to tighten up the text.
The book covers the history of government science advice very briefly, before…
catdynamics | November 2, 2006Just in case, we do our weekly iPod iChing early with a schedule friday publication...
a sort of prescient omniscience.
We will also see how we do with a sharply restricted library selection, this might stretch the iPod's powers to the utmost.
So... oh mighty one. What is in store for us over the next week?
Whoosh goes the Randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: (Waiting For The) Ghost Train - Madness
The Crossing: Hiroshima - Utangarðsmenn
The Crown: Over in the Meadow... - traditional
The Root: Afgan (live) - Stríð og Friður
The Past: Viska Einsteins - Utangarðsmenn
The Future: Grettir og…
catdynamics | November 2, 2006Nice article by MarkCC on why C sucksis not efficient for numerically intensive applications - looks like that's an even better way to get comments and readers than the old "dis String Theory" trick.
Chad has a pointer to a beautiful entry by Aaronson on nifty theoretical things in computer science
So, like, read 'em.
If he writes a book - pop-sci or for "peeple hoo no calculus reel good" I'll read it.
Hell, I'll review it! (Hint)
catdynamics | November 2, 2006Wah.
My poor li'l ol' laptop has a 15 degree bend in it.
Right between the battery slot and the DVD drive.
We were setting up for a talk, of course, and to connect the speakers I moved the laptop case over to a different table, but the Euro/US connector bit on the power supply got tangled in the strap and pulled the laptop off the table. Landed on the battery corner. Quite spectacular.
Still works, amazingly, obviously. But I don't give the hard disk long and strongly suspect the DVD is toast (I'll have to find a sacrificial disk to try it). Also fear that if I pop the battery out it will…
catdynamics | October 31, 2006Scholarships-Ar-US have nominated 10 student bloggers for a nice little scholarship.
Go vote (it is resistant to Chicago voting, must have a cookie and only lets you visit the voting page once, despite the stakes I imagine few people will take the time to flush their browser cookies and reset their DHCP to dishonestly vote multiple times)
Current leader is a kossack, read through the choices, or just take me word for it and vote for SciBling Shelley from Retrospectable
catdynamics | October 31, 2006Toil and Trouble
Griffin, Weiler and Mikulski are live on NASA TV right now to make the announcement on Hubble servicing mission number 4.
And the winner is...
... The Hubble Space Telescope!
Griffin has spoken and a Shuttle servicing mission will be added to the planned launches.
applause
I'm glad, somewhat surprised, I didn't think they were going to do it.
Better have it done, then to keep dragging on a no decision.
Formal announcement should be on here in an hour or so.
Ohh, crew announcement - yes! John Grunsfeld got a slot, he was promised and he got it.
catdynamics | October 30, 2006good old days...
If you were in this picture, or know the people who were, then e-mail me...